ABSTRACT
In Early China David N. Keightley published a review article, with the same title as this brief communication, of the recent work by Noel Barnard and Sato Tamotsu, Metallurgical Remains of Ancient China. The poor are less likely to bury the family sword than the rich are to select from among their surfeit a fine ceremonial blade for interment. And detailed archaeological reports on sites reflecting the lower strata of society are hardly more prevalent from the Aegean than from China, presumably for some of the same reasons. The true ratio of iron to bronze swords was, then, probably even more heavily weighted toward iron than the physical evidence admits, or likely will ever allow. Apart from the fact that iron normally survives more poorly than bronze in the earth, it is less likely to have been buried in the first place.
